Petersburg (Penguin Classics)

by Bely, Andrei

  He sat inside the clearing like the moon that was shining far away – in front of fleeing clouds; and like the moon, his consciousness shone, illumining his soul as the moon illumines the labyrinths of the prospects. Far in front and behind, his consciousness lit up the cosmic ages and the cosmic expanses.

  In those expanses there was no soul: neither person nor shadow.

  And – the expanses were deserted.

  Amidst his four mutually perpendicular walls he seemed to himself a prisoner captured in expanses, if, that was, a captured prisoner did not sense freedom more than anyone else, and if this narrow little interval between walls was not equal in volume to the whole of outer space.

  Outer space was deserted! His deserted room! … Outer space was the final attainment to which wealth could aspire … Monotonous outer space! … His room had always been characterized by monotony … A beggar’s abode would seem excessively luxurious compared to the wretched furnishings of outer space. If he really had moved away from the world, the world’s luxurious splendour would seem wretched compared to these dark yellow walls …

  Aleksandr Ivanovich, resting from the attacks of delirium, began to dream of how he had risen high above the world’s sensual mirage.

  A mocking voice retorted:

  ‘The vodka?’

  ‘The smoking?’

  ‘The lustful feelings?’

  So was he really raised above the world’s mirage?

  His head sagged; that was where the illnesses and the terrors and the persecution came from – from insomnia, cigarettes, and the abuse of spirituous liquors.

  He felt a most violent stab of pain in a diseased molar tooth; he clutched at his cheek with his hand.

  His attack of acute insanity was illuminated for him in a new way; now he knew the truth of acute insanity; insanity itself, in essence, stood before him like a report by his diseased organs of sense – to his self-conscious ‘I’; while Shishnarfne, the Persian subject, symbolized an anagram; it was not, in essence, he who was trying to overtake, pursue and track down his ‘I’ – no, the overtaking and attacking was being done by the organs of his body, which had grown heavier; and, as it fled away from them, his ‘I’ was becoming a ‘not-I’, because through the organs of sense – not from the organs of sense – his ‘I’ was returning to itself; the alcohol, the smoking, the insomnia were gnawing at his body’s feeble constitution; the constitution of our bodies is closely connected to space; and when he had begun to disintegrate, all the spaces had cracked; now bacilli had begun to crawl into the cracks in his sensations, while in the spaces that enclosed his body spectres had begun to hover … So: who was Shishnarfne? With his reverse – the abracadabra-like dream, Enfranshish; but that dream was undoubtedly caused by the vodka. The intoxication, Enfranshish, Shishnarfne were only stages of alcohol.

  ‘I’d do better not to smoke, not to drink: then my organs of sense will serve me again!’

  He – gave a shudder.

  Today he had been guilty of betrayal. How had he failed to realize that? For he had undoubtedly been guilty of betrayal: out of fear, he had let Nikolai Apollonovich fall into Lippanchenko’s hands: he distinctly remembered the outrageous buying and selling. He, without believing, had believed, and in this there was treachery. Lippanchenko was even more of a traitor; that Lippanchenko was betraying them, Aleksandr Ivanovich knew; but had hidden his knowledge from himself (Lippanchenko had an inexplicable power over his soul); in this was the root of the illness: in this terrible knowledge that Lippanchenko was a traitor; the alcohol, the smoking, the depravity were only consequences; the hallucinations must only be the final links in the chain that Lippanchenko had deliberately begun to forge for him. Why? Because Lippanchenko knew that he knew; and precisely by virtue of this knowledge Lippanchenko would not let go.

  Lippanchenko had enslaved his will; the enslavement of his will had come about because the dreadful suspicion would have given everything away; because he kept wanting to dispel the dreadful suspicion; he drove the dreadful suspicion away by constantly keeping company with Lippanchenko; and, suspecting his suspicion, Lippanchenko would not let him move one step out of his sight; thus each had become bound to the other; he poured mysticism into Lippanchenko; and the latter poured alcohol into him.

  Aleksandr Ivanovich now clearly remembered the scene in Lippanchenko’s study; the brazen cynic, the scoundrel had outmanoeuvred him on this occasion, too; he remembered Lippanchenko’s fatty and loathsome neck with its fatty, loathsome fold; as though the fold had been insolently laughing in there, until Lippanchenko turned round, caught his gaze on his neck; catching that gaze, Lippanchenko had understood everything.

  That was why he had started trying to frighten him: had stunned him with an attack and mixed up all the cards; insulted him to death with suspicion and then offered him a sole way out: to pretend that he believed in Ableukhov’s treachery.

  And he, the Elusive One, had believed in it.

  Aleksandr Ivanovich leapt to his feet; and in helpless fury he shook his fists; the deed was done; had been achieved!

  That was what the nightmare had been about.

  Aleksandr Ivanovich had now quite clearly translated the inexpressible nightmare into the language of his feelings; the staircase, the little room, the loft were Aleksandr Ivanovich’s abominably neglected body; the rushing inhabitant of those mournful spaces, whom they were attacking, who was running away from them, was his self-conscious ‘I’, which was ponderously dragging away from itself the organs that had fallen off; while Enfranshish was a foreign substance that had entered the abode of his spirit, his body – with vodka; developing like a bacillus, Enfranshish raced from organ to organ; it was it that was causing all the sensations of persecution, so that later, striking at the brain, it could cause a severe irritation within it.

  He remembered his first meeting with Lippanchenko; the impression had not been a pleasant one; Nikolai Stepanovich had, to tell the truth, displayed curiosity concerning the human weaknesses of the people who entered into association with him; an agent provocateur of superior type could easily possess that clumsy outward appearance, that pair of senselessly blinking eyes.

  He had probably looked like a simpleton.

  ‘Filth … O, filth!’

  And to the degree that he became absorbed in Lippanchenko, in the contemplation of the parts of his body, his ways, his habits, so before him there grew – not a man, but a tarantula.

  And at that point something made of steel entered his soul:

  ‘Yes, I know what I shall do.’

  A brilliant idea dawned on him: it would all so simply come to an end: how had this not occurred to him earlier; his mission was clearly delineated.

  Aleksandr Ivanovich burst into loud laughter:

  ‘The filth thought he could outmanoeuvre me.’

  And again he felt a violent stab of pain in the molar tooth: Aleksandr Ivanovich, torn away from his reverie, clutched at his cheek; the room – universal space – again looked like a wretched room; consciousness was fading (like the light of the moon in the clouds); fever was making him shiver with anxiety and terrors, and the minutes were slowly being fulfilled; one cigarette was being smoked after the other – to the paper, to the wadding …

  When suddenly … –

  The Guest

  Aleksandr Ivanovich Dudkin heard a strange thundering noise; the strange noise thundered downstairs; and was then repeated (he had begun to repeat himself) on the staircase; crash after crash resounded amidst intervals of silence. As though someone were overturning a heavy, many-pood weight of metal on the stone with all his might; and the blows of the metal, shattering the stone, resounded higher and higher, closer and closer. Aleksandr Ivanovich realized that some kind of rough intruder was smashing the staircase to pieces downstairs. He listened closely to ascertain whether someone would open a door on the staircase and put an end to the nocturnal vagrant’s disgraceful behaviour …

  And crash thundered upon crash;
step after step was being shattered to pieces down there; and stone showered down beneath the blows of the heavy tread: to the dark yellow garret, from landing to landing, some fearsome being made of metal was stubbornly coming upstairs; from step to step many thousand poods were falling now with a shaking din; the steps were crumbling; and – now: with a shaking din the landing flew away from the door.

  The door split apart and burst: there was a swift cracking sound – and it flew off its hinges; dim, melancholy emanations spilled from there in cloudy green billows; there the moon’s expanses began – at the shattered door, at the landing, so that the garret room itself was revealed in its ineffability, while in the centre of the threshold, from walls that let through expanses the colour of vitriol – inclining a crowned, green-coloured head, stretching forth a heavy green-coloured arm, stood an enormous body, burning with phosphorus.

  It was the Bronze Guest.

  The lustreless metal cloak hung down heavily – from shoulders that were shot with brilliance and from armour that was like fish-scales; cast-metal lip melted and trembled ambiguously, because once again now Yevgeny’s fate17 was being repeated; thus did the past century repeat itself – now, at the very moment when beyond the threshold of a wretched entrance the walls of an old building were falling apart in vitriol-coloured expanses; in precisely similar fashion was Aleksandr Ivanovich’s past dismantled; he exclaimed:

  ‘I remembered … I’ve been waiting for you …’

  The bronze-headed giant had been racing through periods of time right up to this moment, completing an iron-forged circle; quarter-centuries had flowed by; and Nicholas had ascended the throne; and the Alexanders had ascended the throne; while Aleksandr Ivanych, a shadow, had tirelessly been traversing that same circle, all the periods of time, fleeting through the days, the years, the minutes, through the damp Petersburg prospects, fleeting – in his dreams, awake, fleeting … tormentingly; and in pursuit of him, and in pursuit of everyone – the blows of metal had crashed, shattering lives: the blows of metal had crashed – in vacant lots, in towns; they had crashed – on entrance porches, landings, the steps of midnight staircases.

  The periods of time had crashed; I have heard that crashing. Have you heard it?

  Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov is a blow of crashing stone; Petersburg is the blow of a stone; the caryatid of the entrance porch that is going to break loose over there is that same blow; the pursuits are inevitable; and so are the blows; you will not find sanctuary in a garret; the garret has been prepared by Lippanchenko; and the garret is a trap; one must break out of it, break out of it with blows … on Lippanchenko!

  Then everything will take a different turn; under the blow of the metal that shattered stones, Lippanchenko will fly into pieces, the garret will come crashing down and Petersburg will be destroyed; the caryatid will be destroyed under the blow of the metal; and the blow to Lippanchenko will make Ableukhov’s bare head split in two.

  Everything, everything, everything was illumined now, when after ten decades the Bronze Guest himself came on a visit and said to him resonantly:

  ‘Greetings, dear offspring!’

  Only three steps: the cracks of three beams splitting under the feet of the enormous guest; with his metal rear the emperor cast in bronze resonantly clanged against a chair; his green elbow fell with all the heaviness of bronze on the cheap little table from under the fold of his cloak, with bell-like, booming sounds; and with slow absent-mindedness, the emperor removed his bronze laurels from his head; and the bronze laurel crown fell, with a crash, from his brow.

  And, jangling and clanking, a hand weighing many hundreds of poods took from the folds of the camisole a small, red-glowing pipe, and, indicating the pipe with his eyes, winked at it:

  ‘Petro Primo Catharina Secunda …’18

  Stuck it into his strong lips, and the green smoke of unsoldered bronze began to rise beneath the moon.

  Aleksandr Ivanych, Yevgeny, now understood for the first time that he had fled for a century in vain, that behind him the blows had crashed without any anger – in villages, towns, entrance porches, staircases; he had been pardoned from time immemorial, and all that had been, combined with all that was coming towards him – was only a series of ghostly passages through trials and torments before the trump of the Archangel.

  And – he fell at the feet of the Guest:

  ‘Master!’

  In the Guest’s bronze eye sockets shone a bronze melancholy; on to his shoulder amicably fell a hand that shattered stones and broke collar-bones, glowing red-hot.

  ‘It’s all right: die, be patient a little while …’

  The metal Guest, glowing beneath the moon with a thousand-degree fever, now sat before him burning, red-purple; now, annealed, he turned a dazzling white and flowed towards the inclining Aleksandr Ivanovich in an incinerating flood; in complete delirium Aleksandr Ivanovich trembled in an embrace of many poods: the Bronze Horseman flowed with metals into his veins.

  Scissors

  ‘Barin: are you asleep?’

  Aleksandr Ivanovich Dudkin had for a long time now felt someone pulling at him.

  ‘Er, barin! …’

  At last he opened his eyes and forced himself into the gloomy day.

  ‘But barin!’

  A head bent down.

  ‘What is it?’

  All that Aleksandr Ivanovich could work out at this stage was that he was stretched out on the trestle.

  ‘The police?’

  The corner of the hot pillow jutted out before his eye.

  ‘There aren’t any police …’

  A dark red blotch was crawling away over the pillow – brr: and – through his consciousness fleeted:

  ‘That’s a bedbug.’

  He tried to raise himself on one elbow, but fell into oblivion again.

  ‘Oh Lord, do wake up …’

  He raised himself on his elbow:

  ‘Is that you, Styopka?’

  He saw a spurt of moving steam; the steam came from a teapot: on his table he saw a teapot and a cup.

  ‘Oh, how splendid: tea.’

  ‘What’s splendid about it: you’re burning, barin …’

  Aleksandr Ivanych noticed with astonishment that he still had all his clothes on; not even his wretched little overcoat had been removed.

  ‘How did you get here?’

  ‘I dropped in to see you: an awful lot of factories are on strike; the police were chasing me … I dropped in to see you, with the Prayer Book, that is …’

  ‘Why yes, I remember, I have the Prayer Book.’

  ‘What do you mean, barin: you must have dreamed it …’

  ‘But we saw each other yesterday, didn’t we …’

  ‘We haven’t seen each other for two days.’

  ‘But I thought: it seemed to me …’

  What had he thought?

  ‘I dropped in to see you today; I saw you lying and groaning; you were tossing about, burning – all aflame.’

  ‘But I’ve recovered, Styopka.’

  ‘Funny kind of recovery! … Here, I’ve boiled you up some tea; I’ve brought bread; a hot kalatch; drink up and you’ll feel better. It’s not good for you to lie about like that …’

  Metallic boiling water had flowed through his veins in the night (that he remembered).

  ‘Yes – yes: I had quite a substantial fever in the night, my dear fellow …’

  ‘And no wonder …’

  ‘A fever of a hundred degrees …’

  ‘You’ll stew yourself away with all that alcohol.’

  ‘Stew in my own boiling water, eh? Ha-ha-ha …’

  ‘Why not? They were talking about an alcoholic fellow who had puffs of smoke coming out of his mouth … And he stewed himself away …’

  Aleksandr Ivanovich smiled an unpleasant smile.

  ‘You’ve drunk yourself to the little devils …’

  ‘There were little devils, there were … That is why I asked for the Prayer Book: so I cou
ld read them a lecture.’

  ‘You’ll drink yourself to the Green Dragon, too …’

  Aleksandr Ivanovich gave another crooked smile:

  ‘Well, and all Russia, my friend …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Is from the Green Dragon …’

  And he thought to himself:

  ‘Oh, what’s got into me? …’

  ‘That’s not true at all: Russia is Christ’s …’

  ‘You’re raving …’

  ‘You’re raving yourself: you’ll drink yourself to her, to the one herself …’

  Aleksandr Ivanovich leapt up in fear.

  ‘To whom?’

  ‘You’ll drink yourself to the white … woman …’

  That delirium tremens was sneaking up on him, there was no doubt.

  ‘Oh! I know: I’d like you to go down to the chemist’s … And buy me some quinine: the hydrochloric kind …’

  ‘Oh, all right, then …’

  ‘And remember: not the sulphate; the sulphate is pure indulgence …’

  ‘It’s not quinine you want, barin …’

  ‘Away now – off you go! …’

  Stepan went out of the door, and Aleksandr Ivanovich shouted after him:

  ‘And Styopushka, get some dried raspberries, too: I want some raspberry jam in my tea.’

  And he thought to himself:

  ‘Raspberries are a splendid sudorific,’ – and with nimble, somehow flowing gestures, he ran over to the water tap; but hardly had he washed himself than inside him everything flared up again, confusing reality with delirium.

  Yes. As he had been talking to Styopka, he had had a constant impression that something was waiting for him outside the door: something primordially familiar. There, outside the door? And he leapt to open it; but outside the door there was only the landing; and the railings of the staircase hung over the abyss; now Aleksandr Ivanovich stood over the abyss, leaning against the railings, clicking a completely dry tongue and shivering with ague. There was some taste, some sensation of copper: both in his mouth and on the tip of his tongue.